While financial education loosely exists on the national curriculum, its teaching can be very sporadic with little impact as it does not take priority over the main exam subjects.
Furthermore, it is often left to teachers, some of whom might not have had good financial education, let alone trained in it, to pick up the resources and deliver the content.
This lack of priority and potential preparation in delivery ultimately impacts the students in the classroom who leave school feeling like they have learnt little or nothing about finance at school.
The rise of the ‘buy now, pay later’ trend has almost made it cool to essentially take out creditAt a time where the economy is talked about daily and a plethora of unknown words such as rising debt, living costs, credit, APR, tax rates and more are mentioned frequently in the mainstream media, it is now more important than ever that our young people are equipped with the knowledge to make some sense of all this and begin their journey of understanding more about money.
Buy now, pay later
The rise of the ‘buy now, pay later’ trend that has swamped the online retail market has almost made it cool to essentially take out credit and potentially fall into debt. Whatever happened to saving up for something?
Recent research from Citizens Advice suggests that one in eight young people have been chased by debt collectors. Lured by the endless marketing campaigns and sponsored influencer ads on Instagram and Tiktok, coupled with a lack of understanding of how credit really works, it is no real surprise that we are creating a generation that are becoming hooked on debt from a young age.
Of course, debt at some point in life is inevitable, like taking out a mortgage for a house, but there is a difference between good and bad debt as well as understanding one’s capability to pay it back.
Financial fraud and scams
Over the past year more than 1m people reported scams to HM Revenue & Customs. Alarmingly, HMRC has recently warned university students to be on the lookout for potential scams.
This is due to the higher number of students going to university and potentially opting for a part-time job where their interaction with HMRC has been little to non-existent. It is, therefore, no surprise that young people, just like other vulnerable parts of society, are highly susceptible to financial scams and frauds.
So, how do we expect young people to make informed financial decisions or prevent falling for scams without knowledge?
The road to financial resilience in adult life has to start from a young age and, arguably, in school. We have a duty to ensure young people leave school with real life skills and be equipped with the knowledge to make informed and balanced financial decisions.
For the past few years, the My Personal Finance Skills initiative, delivered by personal finance professionals and members of the Personal Finance Society, has embarked on a free national financial education programme to teach students more about money matters.
Quality marked material is delivered in workshops to students aged 12 to 18, covering topics such as the first payslip, understanding credit, debit and debt, loans, mortgages and much more.
In the past academic year alone, and despite the challenges of remote learning, more than 600 workshops were delivered, reaching more than 20,000 students with the help of a growing network of 900 volunteers.
These one-hour workshops fit nicely into a school day and are ideal for lessons, whole-school insight days or other enrichment activities.
Sessions are delivered by personal finance professionals who can provide their own wealth of experience and expertise in the topic areas and go some way to encourage students to learn more about money early on.
The sooner people can realise the value in planning for their financial futures, the sooner they will understand the value of financial advice later in life.
By empowering young people to understand more about money through this initiative, there is also every possibility that they will be inspired into a career in the profession, as financial planning truly can transform lives.
It is time that young people receive the financial education that they need and deserve from society to enable them to be in control of their financial futures.
George Tsounias is relationship manager for education at the Personal Finance Society
